


Genius

by AdelaCathcart



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Age Difference, Character Study, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Gardening, Gerontophilia, Masturbation, Maystadt Process, Pre-Canon, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:08:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22989115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaCathcart/pseuds/AdelaCathcart
Summary: It’s far from her first time seducing a man twice her age. She recrosses her legs, inviting the old goat’s eyes to slither up her skin, and she goes slowly to ensure she has his full attention, pointing her toe and winging her foot to keep the line of the ankle long, which feels awkward but looks wonderfully graceful. The wet red point of his tongue darts over his lips and he emits a nearly subaural moan. Her smile remains lively and oblivious while a thrill of disgust trickles through her and her cunt twitches like a harvestman’s severed limbs.[An early episode in the business/pleasure arrangement between Mrs. Coulter and Lord Boreal. This is strictly silver fox Boreal from the books, not indisputably hot TV Boreal.]
Relationships: Carlo Boreal/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 15
Kudos: 20





	1. Sub Rosa

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATED JULY 22 2020: Philip Pullman has officially named Boreal's dæmon Grizel; my fic has been updated as a result. For the record, the name I had given her (Glauca) is also a six-letter name beginning with G which means "gray" and I just think we should all take a moment to admire that.
> 
> “When I felt annoyed I practiced looking serene, even cheerful; in my enthusiasm I went so far as to suffer pain voluntarily so as to achieve a simultaneous expression of pleasure.” ― Chodelos De Laclos, _Les Liaisons dangereuses_
> 
> "Lord Boreal is in town: he'll be fun." — _Northern Lights/The Golden Compass_
> 
>  _Did you light the candles? Did you put on_ Kind of Blue _?  
>  Did you use that Ivy League voodoo on him, too?  
> He thinks he'll be all right but he doesn't know for sure  
> Like every other unindicted co-conspirator  
>   
> Mata Hari had a house in France  
> Where she worked on all her secret plans  
> Men were falling for her sight unseen  
> She was a genius_  
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boreal receives an assignment, shows off his garden, and smells like a corpse.

It’s far from her first time seducing a man twice her age. Edward’s forty years had looked impossibly old to her at twenty, and his ring felt so much like a stone at the mouth of Antigone’s cave when he slid it on her finger that she had given herself permission to escape it the same way. His lovemaking was ardent if prosaic, and she had steeled herself to be content with this, or at the very least not to embarrass him, but as usual the Fiend had other plans. Asriel at forty had been so young and full of life by contrast, a sweet breeze dancing through the bars of her rough cell, until he tore it down around her ears, and infuriatingly he hasn’t aged since, still aghast when called to account for his own recklessness, like all younger brothers, even hers. Marisa has felt old since she was four and learned to force her tears back down to calm her hysterical parents, and every person whose authority she’s subverted since then has added their years to her life, so that now she’s ten thousand and unstoppable. By normal reckoning, she’s thirty.

Carlo is sixty and smells like a corpse. Or more accurately, he smells like a funeral. He’s handsome, powerful, distinguished, his eyes are a deep brown, intensely beautiful, but the scented handkerchief he wears carries a perfume so rich it’s an olfactory _vanitas_ , one of those gruesome still lifes of tables groaning with luscious delicacies which on closer inspection disclose signs of concupiscent decay. There’s a garden on his property which he claims to tend himself, and his green snake dæmon, Grizel, certainly seems to like hunting for sport the smaller vermin that live there. Once against Marisa’s better judgement her own dæmon showed the snake how he could coax a garden snail from its shell with honeyed words and then use his teeth to pull until it snapped like taffy. Marisa had given him hell for that—she thought they’d both outgrown such vulgar displays of brutality—and now he confines himself to flushing harvestmen from the undersides of low-growing plants for the snake to destroy and be petted for.

Between themselves, they both find this pathetic. “She’s trying to impress you,” she mutters to the monkey as Grizel flails lewdly after her gangling prey.

“I know.” He wearily evens her silver hair combs. “I haven’t been impressed in years.”

She kisses him. “You want her know that, idiot?”

She has many admirers and few friends, but she really enjoys Boreal’s company. He’s as vain and catty as an old homosexual (and Marisa has always craved the approval of such men, though they rarely return her interest), but with the indispensable advantage of susceptibility to all of her best weapons. It would be impossible for him to completely conceal his desire for her, she’s far too sharp for that, but he’s too well-bred to make an ass of himself, and this allows her to flirt shamelessly and never be obliged to make good. She thinks of it as an investment. She maintains many such accounts, replete with unspent longing and often more valuable than money, for she’s found that when a favor is wanted the promise of her flesh does damage against which no bankroll can defend.

She wants a favor now.

For the occasion she’s chosen navy Crêpe de Catai, elegantly cut, with a high collar, long sleeves, and full loose skirt the slightly asymmetrical hem of which falls almost to her ankles. The modest style highlights her graceful form while seeming to obscure it, and Carlo will feel culpable when he notices the play of muted sunlight on dark silk where it clings to her hips and thighs. Underneath she wears a full slip in smoky peach, cut slim on the bias to preserve the line of the dress. She has no intention of letting him see it but it was nonetheless chosen with an eye to his tastes, because she likes to be prepared.

“You look exquisite as usual, Marisa,” he fawns, brushing his soft, dry lips to her hand. “That dress—it's Alessandra Rich, isn't it? The Princess Rosamund wore the same one to a luncheon at the Vespertine Foundation last week.” He’s referring to a sometime paramour of his. This transparent attempt to arouse her jealousy animates her.

“This? I’m afraid I wouldn’t know—it was a gift,” she demurs, to punish him. “I’m sure she was quite striking in it.”

Boreal pretends to consider this before unveiling a sly smile. “Naturally, but—not quite the thing for her figure, I would say.”

This is why she likes him.

They drink coffee among potted palms in his humid solarium. He loves to gossip, even about people she’d thought were his particular friends, and his perfidy puts her at ease in a way that honesty would never. Honesty is untrustworthy, beholden as it is to the ever-shifting facts. This is seduction, the world of fantasy, terrain shaped by the improvised contours of pleasure, and he’s pathetically eager to please. Each poisonous anecdote of a mutual acquaintance is like a child’s squalid little bouquet of violets.

“Carlo,” she says sweetly, conspicuously adjusting the narrow strap of her shoe, “The other day I heard the strangest rumor.”

“What was that, my dear?”

“Well, it concerns a certain experimental theologian at the metallurgy chapel in Cambridge. Rather good at his work, if not particularly distinguished, but then he hasn’t been there all that long. And… I’m afraid it’s a little indelicate…”

“Please, go on.”

“It seems this man is subject to a certain sexual perversion. Nothing illegal, you understand, but terribly improper. Apparently one such association of his resulted in a student’s suicide last year, which was immediately hushed up before it could harm the reputation of the college.”

“How shocking,” he says warmly. “What sort of perversion could it be, I wonder?”

“I wonder. But then you have research investments in Cambridge yourself—please stop me if you’ve already heard all this. Perhaps you even know the man. I understand his dæmon is a baboon.”

“I don’t believe so, but I must admit I sympathize—we are all of us at times enslaved to inconvenient passions.” Boreal innocently sips his coffee, but his snake dæmon is flowing agitatedly around his wrist and through his fingers.

“Of course it would be _so_ unfortunate if this sordid business were to damage your interests there.”

“Is that likely?”

“It depends. He may be dismissed for unrelated reasons before another scandal can occur.”

He coughs as the snake shoots up his sleeve. "This man was very unwise to make himself your enemy."

"My enemy? On the contrary, I want to offer him a job."

At last he takes her meaning. "Ah. I see. And when you do, I doubt he'll find himself in any position to refuse. May I freshen your cup, my dear?"

"How kind."

She recrosses her legs, inviting the old goat’s eyes to slither up her skin, and she goes slowly to ensure she has his full attention, pointing her toe and winging her foot to keep the line of the ankle long, which feels awkward but looks wonderfully graceful. The wet red point of his tongue darts over his lips and he emits a nearly subaural moan. Her smile remains lively and oblivious while a thrill of disgust trickles through her and her cunt twitches like a harvestman’s severed limbs.

After the coffee he leads her outside, to the freestanding iron conservatory where he’s breeding a new strain of rose which he plans to name for her. The flowers are white-gold, the stems limp and frail; Marisa is almost insulted. Nonetheless his efforts merit her effusive praise because, like an ancient god, even the most meager tribute raises her profile. Then, because she’s getting bored, she forces a thorn into her fingertip to see what he will do.

The pain is tiny but orgasmically bright, a pinhole illuminating the dark room of her mind. She immediately feels more alert and more adept. With a few slow, deep breaths she allows the endorphin response to bloom in her like venom before leaking out a shaky little gasp so the symptoms of her pleasure will seem like distress.

“Oh, _goodness_ , how clumsy of me,” she announces.

“Ah, what has my vicious girl done to you?” He reaches out to gently pinch her finger at the first joint, holding it in place, and with the other hand he hooks the slender stem and pulls it free. Then he draws her hand very close to his face and watches as a red gem of blood swells on her fingertip. His breath caresses her perspiring palm. “You see… she takes after you already…”

“Carlo, your _suit_ —“ she exclaims, because the surface tension of the blood drop is about to break, and the next closest object will be his flax-colored jacket. In truth she would just as soon ruin it, but there's a pretense of innocence to maintain. In any event she underestimated the old man’s reflexes.

Before the drop can fall he has her finger in his mouth.

His eyes close reverently as he sucks her, stroking the pad of her fingertip with that pointed tongue. Time stops while Marisa surveys an infinitude of possible responses. She could scream with outrage or laugh coquettishly. She could jam her fingernail into the roof of his mouth. She could snatch the hand back and make him stammer an apology. She could moan with pleasure. She could run. She never considers an authentic reaction because she doesn’t precisely have one, or else they all feel equally authentic. As usual, her only real feeling is the stimulation, her mastery of it, which excites her, so she smiles and lets him suck.

He unfurls his reeking pocket handkerchief and wraps it around her hand. His expression is one of timid supplication, and again she experiences that twinge of disgust which is so close to arousal. She presses it like a bruise. A bit of her blood is smeared on his withered lip. Rising on her toes, she extends her tongue and takes it back.

Confused, Grizel moves to coil around his ankle, but with ghostlike delicacy the monkey restrains her, stroking the cold mailed head as Marisa works her victim. She licks his mouth teasingly, pretending to be cautious, shivering with pleasure at her own expertise as she feels him harden against her. He’s afraid to reciprocate, as he should be, for when he finally parts his lips to let his tongue meet hers she moves suddenly out of reach.

“Your garden is more dangerous than it looks, Carlo,” she says coolly, feigning a sudden ladylike diffidence. “Have your man bring the car around.”

That night after the monkey combs her hair out and she buries her face in her arms and weeps—not for any particular reason, it’s just what they usually do—they compete to come up with the most appalling way to humiliate the man.

“I’d enjoy rubbing his hangdog face in the dirt,” she says grimly.

“Piss in that _fucking_ handkerchief of his and make him eat it,” he suggests, adding ice to her glass with silver tongs.

“I could shit in that handkerchief and put it back in his pocket, and not one person would know the difference. If anything it would be an improvement.”

Many people have known the monkey for an avid spy, but few realize that this talent for observation also makes him a keen mimic. His impression of Boreal is ruthless, back erect and mouth drooping to imitate an aristocrat’s supercilious diction.“‘Why, Lord _Boreal_ , what’s that unusual _scent_ you’re wearing?’ ‘How good of you to notice. It’s _Pâté de la Mer_.’ ‘You mean ambergris?’ ‘Ah, not _precisely_ —’”

Marisa cackles into her fists. “I’ll put my stiletto heel through his scrotum and pin him to his garden bed.”

“Then kick him until he ejaculates blood,” her dæmon adds. “‘Ah, Ma _ree_ sa, you’re _too_ kind—another, if you _please_ —I shall soon spend—'” He makes a grotesque choking noise and pretends to swoon. She laughs until she cries. She and her dæmon are very hard on each other, no outside critic could ever be half as cruel, but they love each other, too, with a passion she’s never quite been able to muster for other people, though one or two came briefly close. Never again. After long years wasted cringing in the shadow of her shame, she’s finally, finally built a life beholden to no one.

She downs the contents of her glass, lets her dressing gown fall and scoops the monkey into her arms. He nestles between her breasts and falls immediately into untroubled sleep, as he always does, the little bastard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dress: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2019-ready-to-wear/alessandra-rich/slideshow/collection#24


	2. Omnia Vanitas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marisa and her dæmon have an argument, go on an expensive date, and look at an astrolabe.

It takes Marisa about a month to securely entomb the ephebophile metallurgist in the experimental station she’s acquired in Norroway. Once she’s put him to work forging the tungsten alloy blade she wants so badly she can taste it, she arranges to pay her dues to the man who delivered him to her. She’s taken her time working the spell, permitting desire for him ripen on the vine now that she’s found a way to weaponize it. Boreal’s well-connected, unscrupulous, and fully in her thrall: through him she’ll have access to all the vulnerable talent she could ask for, which will be invaluable as she expands her operations in the Arctic. What’s more, the thought of bestowing the sublime gift of her flesh on this unworthy acolyte pleases her. The monkey is less enthusiastic.

“It will be fun,” she begs him, dusting her lower body with lilac-scented talcum powder.

“I don’t want to go. He stinks and she’s so boring I could die. I suppose you expect me to make love to her while you do whatever it is you’re planning. I won’t do it. You can bloody well go without me.”

“Perfect, I’m sure he’ll find that irresistible.”

“A man with some imagination might! But you never seem to pursue one, why is that, I wonder?”

“If I let you pick my lovers I’d be penniless as well as bored.”

He adopts the high, simpering voice he uses to mock her, knowing how she hates it. “Oh, Carlo, yes, show me that gaudy conservatory of yours for the thousandth time—my father was just like you, I’m sure of it—“

“You’re very clever, now shut up or I’ll shut you up.”

“Do it! I love it when you hurt yourself for spite. You think anyone else would tell you what a phony you are? You surround yourself with sycophants.” A memory flares up in her unbidden, like a little gout of flame, and the monkey pounces on it. “You’re thinking of Asriel. You think he loved you? He never even knew you. No one does. Only me. Even there I sometimes wonder.”

She kicks him hard in the belly. He flies across the floor like a golden football and she crumples, clutching her stomach in pain. The monkey limps out of the bedroom, laughing.

Half an hour later she’s in floor-length lavender satin with her hair perfectly hot-rolled, and the monkey wordlessly presents himself to be carried in her arms as she leaves the apartment. He’s combed his fur as a propitiatory gesture. It would be pointless to apologize—to begin with, neither one of them is sorry—so they ride the lift together in silence.

Boreal picks her up in his Rolls Royce and they have dinner at a stylish French restaurant. The owner is a friend of his, and sends them over a bottle worth more than a car, with his compliments. Marisa lets him order for her, implying she can't read the menu, in part because she's curious to see whether he'll play along with such an obvious lie, and he accommodates her so gracefully she almost feels ashamed. She fakes enchantment, which isn’t to say she doesn’t feel it, only that she feels it because she chooses to. The monkey is restless, huddled on the floor by her feet, industriously peeling paper off the wall.

“Your health, Carlo,” she purrs, lifting her glass.

“Yours, Marisa—my most ardent wish.” They drink, but he’s too pleased with himself to be patient. “How does your metallurgist like his new position?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid. It’s quite remote, as you know, and I’ve set him rather a difficult task besides. But when we begin our experimentation in earnest he may at least find the surroundings more congenial.”

“How very cold-blooded of you.” He says this in a tone of praise. Grisel peeps from his sleeve coyly, tasting the air with her uncanny tongue.

“There are bound to be certain test subjects unsuited to the procedure—we may as well find some useful employment for them. These precious children have been entrusted to us for the greater good of the church. It would be cruel, wouldn’t it, to reject their sacrifice entirely?”

He looks a little lost, so she changes the subject to illicit antiquities, knowing he’ll be easier to handle later if she lets him lecture himself hoarse now. Eventually he gets around to boasting about his most recent black market acquisition: a medieval Persian armillary sphere, an object just heretical enough to pique her interest.

She drops her voice and her chin to give him a look of playful incredulity. “But Carlo, there must be some mistake—everyone knows it was the Church that first confirmed a heliocentric model. The Maragha school is all but proven to be a hoax concocted to undermine the scientific primacy of the Magisterium. I think your artifact must be a forgery.”

“Then you must see it for yourself! Let me offer you a night cap, my dear. Of course my chauffeur will be at your service whenever you wish.”

She pretends to hesitate, and it’s not a part of her scheme this time, but only a lie all women tell to save face.

In the car, she holds the monkey on her lap, both his little hands secure in one of hers, to keep him from picking at a loose thread in the creamy leather upholstery until the whole beautiful seat comes undone. His resentment sparks off his red-gold fur like static, but he’s too proud to offer a vain resistance, and they are still of one mind about this at least: that Boreal and Grizel should think them in perfect harmony; so he stares out the window dreamily as if there’s nothing he’d rather do. Marisa lifts her shoulder to let a little moonlight spill on her milky décolletage. Boreal pants like a dog.

The Persian astrolabe is no bigger than an orange, and there's no need for her to feign her delight. “Show me how it works!” she begs, clasping her hands together like a child, and the monkey hangs off the back of a chair to get a closer look. Beaming, Boreal calibrates the mechanism, but she can see right away that the Arabic mathematical markings largely elude him; he’s bloviating. Nonetheless she rests her fingers lightly over his, shadowing his delicate adjustments, and when he drops his hand to his side her hand follows it like a comet’s tail. Her other hand brushes his jawbone, turning his face to hers.

He cups the side of her neck, thumb resting in front of her ear, and his touch feels very soft and warm as he pulls her into a skillful kiss. With his deep brown eyes on fire and the bronze orb in his upraised palm he resembles the portrait of an emperor, and she takes him in her arms and kisses him back with what feels like genuine desire, or she might be feeling his desire for her, the difference is immaterial. He turns them so her back's against the wall, and strokes lightly with the backs of his fingers down the deep vee front of her gown. Then he takes her breasts out and kisses them, and she lets the dress drop to the floor.

Until the last possible moment, the monkey tinkers with the abandoned astrolabe, letting the snake twine beseechingly around his flicking tail while Marisa stares daggers at him over Boreal’s shoulder. Only when the man is poised to enter her does her dæmon finally deign to participate, drawing the snake to him suddenly with both hands as if he’s only just noticed her there. Then he takes her behind a chair, so Marisa can’t see what they do together.

As a lover Boreal is proficient but impersonal, so she feels pleasantly like a warm body with no head. She fucks him in his study on a brocade sofa, holding the elaborately sculpted crest rail with both hands, coyly stifling exaggerated cries of pleasure. Like a gigolo he plainly requires her climax to precede his own, and his masterfully generic caresses are about to accomplish this neatly until she thinks of her own reliably pretty face warped into paroxysms of monstrous abandon, and she loses her nerve and fakes it. Maybe next time, if he behaves well, she'll let him taste the real thing, but it's a good performance, and clearly more than adequate to convince him his job is done. Before ejaculating he slips out of her politely, and catches it in the handkerchief as if it were a sneeze.

It's the beginning of a very fruitful partnership, and they part on excellent terms.

Once she gets home she masturbates furiously with a heavy toy phallus, gold over bitter steel, which she keeps in a velvet sleeve beside her pillow. Its cool, adamant weight is immensely comforting, and she lets the pleasure take her while her mind drifts elsewhere, nowhere, blessedly empty. She doesn't bother to count her orgasms. She keeps going until the pathways unclog and she finds herself able to cry.

She’s always wept easily, and with practice choked her tears back easily too—tears evoke pity, they work covertly, they disarm as they seem to supplicate. Even the most stolid opponents find them difficult to withstand, for granite erodes under gentle flowing water. Tears were her first weapon, which is why she hates them in others, especially children. The cry of a baby enrages her (even—especially—once, long ago—her own), because she knows in her heart it’s a form of attack.

But it’s only herself and her dæmon here now, and if she wants to shed tears for her exhaustion, her loneliness, if she wants to feel sorry for herself there’s no reason to abstain. Flowing water also consoles, it also washes away. The monkey cradles her head in his skinny arms, murmuring the tender words her mother must have once used, though Marisa no longer recalls them in her voice: “ _Ne pleure pas, mon tout-petit, mon coeur. Je sais que cela paraît bien sombre mais fais-moi confiance: ce n'est pas si grave. Tout ira bien._ ”

“Stop—stop it—don’t be kind to me,“ she says weakly, but he ignores her, and for once she’s grateful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Her hairstyle: https://www.thehairstyler.com/hairstyles/formal/short/wavy/january-jones?ref=hair_lengths
> 
> Her gown: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2019-ready-to-wear/alessandra-rich/slideshow/collection#44
> 
> His astrolabe: http://www.scientificinstrumentsociety.org/news/2018/2/13/paper-instruments-in-the-history-of-ottoman-astronomy-afbst
> 
> His sofa: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1987.62.1/

**Author's Note:**

> The song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYFRzcgAM4w


End file.
